You're Not My Mother
"What happened earlier… was a mistake. That really… should never have happened."
She tried to keep her voice steady, stripping it of feeling as carefully as she could, but she could feel it herself — the faint tremor that crept in toward the end of every sentence.
Taeseok simply watched her. He said nothing. He only looked at her as if he were taking in every word through his eyes alone.
That quiet gaze only made the weight heavier. Eunjeong found herself wringing her hands together harder for no good reason.
"I'm sure I… made mistakes too. I'm truly sorry. But we're both adults, and… let's make sure nothing like that ever happens again. You… you understand what I'm saying right now, don't you?"
Even as the words left her mouth, Eunjeong knew they were less about persuading Taeseok than about repeating a vow to herself over and over.
A brief silence settled between them. Short, but stretched taut with awkwardness.
"Why? Why shouldn't something like that happen again?"
For a moment Eunjeong couldn't find her voice. The question was so simple that she had no idea where to begin explaining.
"…Why… because you're… Hye-yeong unnie's son, and…"
She managed to get that much out, but the words that should have followed refused to come of their own accord.
"There's also a big age difference between us…"
The reasons that had been circling in her mouth lost all their force the moment she tried to speak them, scattering into nothing.
"That… doesn't matter."
No hesitation. No wavering. Just a flat, certain voice.
Eunjeong's gaze faltered.
"Doesn't matter? You're like a son to me. I really did think of you as my own son."
She tried to sound firmer, but she never quite managed true resolve. She knew better than anyone how she had reacted, only a short while ago, to the man she had thought of as a son.
Taeseok did not look away. He did not take a single step back. He held her eyes more clearly and went on.
"I'm not a kid… and I'm not someone you need to look after, ma'am."
He paused, then added in a perfectly even tone,
"And I'm not your son either. Not even close. And that 'son' of yours… already slept with you."
The moment the words landed, something in the center of Eunjeong's chest quietly gave way. The last reason she had been clinging to crumbled far more easily, and far more emptily, than she had expected.
After another stretch of silence, Taeseok spoke again.
"Ma'am. Do you have plans tonight?"
The question came so out of nowhere that she tilted her head.
"Huh? What are you talking about all of a sudden? I don't have any plans."
"And you didn't just come back from somewhere…"
Eunjeong still had no idea what he was getting at. She only tilted her head further.
"Then why did you come over all dressed up like this?"
"Huh? No, that's…"
"This isn't even your usual style. You wanted… to look pretty for me, didn't you?"
"That's not it!!!"
Her face burned as if her private thoughts had been laid bare; she denied it hard.
"And if you looked pretty for me, what were you planning to do with that?"
"What on earth are you saying? Are you even listening to me?"
Taeseok watched her and slowly shook his head.
"I thought you felt the same way I do. That's how it seemed to me. But… if I was wrong, and if you really think we can't… then I'll… do the same."
There was no forced persuasion in his tone, no anxious urge to hold on. He simply sounded as if he would take her words at face value — calm, drained of force.
Eunjeong's eyes wavered.
Taeseok paused, then added quietly without looking away.
"Besides… I wasn't planning to do anything on my own anyway."
The line was tossed off lightly, but something hollow sat inside it — the same empty, listless Taeseok who had lately stayed indoors with no drive, no spark at all.
"If you don't want this… I don't mind ending it here either."
He went on slowly.
"Right now I… don't need… anything."
It might have sounded cold, but it was less coldness than the flatness of a man with nothing left to want. Not the speech of someone desperate to cling, but of someone for whom having or not having made no difference — the quiet resignation of a person who had lived at a distance from the world, content to let anything go if it didn't force a choice.
When he finished, something in Eunjeong's chest sank again. Relief, yes — but pity for him rose with it as well. And separate from both of those, a loss she had no right to feel. She had wanted him to accept the line she was drawing, and yet the moment he took it so easily, she felt as if she had let something slip through her fingers.
Eunjeong slowly clenched the hands resting on her knees, then let them fall open, emptied of strength.
"…Alright. Let's do that. That's what we should do. Thank you for understanding, Taeseok."
She gave a small nod as she said it, but the hollow ache in one side of her chest refused to fade even after the words were gone.
She hesitated a moment longer, then rose from her seat as if there were nothing left to say, and walked toward the door.
Right… ending it like this is fine. This is the right thing.
Her hand stopped on the doorknob.
Unlike the carefully ordered resolutions she had spoken only moments before, the simple act of opening this door and walking out would not come. She tried to put force into her fingers to turn the handle, but the strength never quite reached her fingertips.
She simply stood there.
Facing the door, her back to the room, unable to say a word.
The room was still.
"…What's wrong?"
Taeseok's voice came from behind her.
Eunjeong did not answer. More accurately, she could not. If she opened her mouth, whatever she was barely holding together would fall apart at once.
Taeseok walked toward her.
Eunjeong's feet stayed planted as if glued to the floor. She tried to put strength into the hand on the doorknob, but somehow it would not move the way she wanted.
"…You're right. Why am I like this…"
She murmured it to herself, so softly it was almost inaudible.
Her hand slipped slowly free of the doorknob. And with a very slow motion, almost reluctant, she half-turned her body.
In that instant she felt him clearly — Taeseok, already right behind her. Too close. The warmth of his body and the brush of his breath against her back sharpened every nerve.
"Earlier… was it really… a mistake?"
The question was careful, but it cut straight to the heart of things — and it was a question she could not answer.
Eunjeong's breath caught, then stumbled back into an uneven rhythm.
"Yes. So let's… stop talking about it."
She forced the words out. But there was no strength left in them even to convince herself.
"It wasn't… for me."
That single, even line made Eunjeong's body tremble visibly. It felt as if he had put a hand straight on her heart.
He lifted his hand slowly and carefully closed it over hers. From the place where his fingertips touched, that familiar sensation began to seep in again — the same strange feeling that had undone her body only a few hours before.
But it no longer stopped at the sensation itself. It pulled up, sharp and clear, the memory of being held against him, and with it every feeling that had followed after.
"Taeseok…"
Her voice was low and shaking.
He stepped closer still. They were near enough now that their breath mixed without effort.
Eunjeong's gaze wavered. She tried to turn her head away, but she could not fully manage it; she stopped halfway, caught in between.
"…I shouldn't do this… I… really didn't come here for this…"
The words slipped out, weak.
"No… it's alright."
His voice was low and quiet.
"And… for you too, ma'am, it wasn't a mistake."
At that, her eyes shook hard once more.
"Taeseok… even if that's true, nothing changes. We… really can't be this kind of people."
"I don't care about that. And you… you want this too. You know you do."
Eunjeong could not answer him. If she opened her mouth, something would break.
"You can't… have everything you want."
She forced the words out, but even she could hear how little conviction they carried.
"That's true. But…"
Taeseok drew a breath as if choosing his next words, and looked straight at her.
"…I don't really understand… why we have to force ourselves not to take what we want right now."
He said nothing more. Instead, he slowly tilted his head.
The movement was so unhurried, so clear, that there was more than enough time to pull away.
No… if we do this again…
A last warning rang through her mind.
"You can pull away if you want."
But she did not pull away from his lips. Instead, very slowly, she closed her eyes of her own accord.
And then his warm, soft mouth settled carefully over hers.
